Empathetic Engines
by ZootyCutie
Summary: Humanization. A collection of oneshots based on the lives of old and new residents of Sodor with a special gift: the ability to link with machines! Rated T for themes in later chapters. Contains own characters and cross-over with shared universes in future.


This is a humanization experiment for Thomas the Tank Engine (and technically Jack and the Pack as well, plus two extra related universes). Throughout the story, I own Clinker, Fitzgerald, Yukiko, Roxanne, Beck, Dixie, Kimmy, Stray Cat, and Evinrude (the latter two to be introduced later, in two separate personas) and anything related to them, both their humanized forms and their vehicle forms (which appear inanimate in this story). I also own any humanization designs of already established Thomas characters. The character Cogs (in any form) belongs to markzilla6895 of deviantART and is used with his permission. The original versions of the Thomas characters belong to HiT Entertainment and the original versions of future characters of a different yet shared universe belong to Clearwater Features, with other variations of those characters belonging to Sunbow Entertainment. This story takes place in modern times. Enjoy!

* * *

Every so often, a very special person is born. It can't be explained through science or testing, but these people have become known as "Engine Empathizers". What this means is, these people have an innate gift where they can have the trust of an inanimate machine and gain complete control of it. The machine will only work for that person, however, once they decided on that person. Don't let the name fool you, though. Even though locomotives of all kinds, from steam to diesel to electric, are very common machines for Empathizers, various types of road, sea, and air vehicles will empathize with people as well. Even some rolling stock will allow people to empathize with them, though this can come with a price: some very troublesome goods trucks love to empathize with more than one person at a time and in return have multiple people empathize with them so both of them get away with playing very dangerous and risky tricks against the other Empathizers and their machines.

You see, thanks to the empathetic nature brought on by people that only connect with one machine at a time, the machine finds an attachment to the Empathizer that they themselves share with their machine. If the Empathizer should die, the machine will never run again. If the machine should be destroyed beyond repair in any way, the Empathizer will lose all liveliness in their life, becoming an empty shell of the person they once were. As such, most Empathizers are looked down on by other people in some places. However, there's one place where they've been accepted no matter what.

The Island of Sodor is a world of railroads. A world where, despite running at modern times like most places in the world, also seems to be a time capsule at the same time. It is a world of steam. It is a world of full diesels. Full electric trains are still a fairly novel idea to them. And it is all held together by one very important man: Sir Topham Hatt. Sir Topham Hatt, known as the Fat Controller behind his back, is a very powerful man on the Island of Sodor. He is the controller of all of the standard gauge railways on the island (with the narrow gauge ones being controlled by Mr. Percival, the Thin Controller). Engine Empathizers flock to Sodor as a sanctuary, as they know that, no matter their engine type, they'll have a place on Sodor. These people have all sorts of adventures on the island. These are just a few of their stories.

* * *

The famed ship, the S. S. Roxstar sailed through the sea. Her captain, Ms. Vienna Roxstar, was an esteemed captain, happy to bring cargo and people around the world. Today, she had a very heavy and very important load for Sodor. Securely strapped on the deck were three steam engines (one standard gauge, the other two narrow gauges), three diesel engines (once again, one standard, the other two narrow), a small standard gauge goods truck, and a small ATV. The owners of these vehicles were all in various areas of the ship, hoping for Sodor to bring change to them.

In one of the cabins, three people were eagerly waiting for the boat to land. This included two young adults and one teenager. The eldest of the young adults was the only male of the group. He had black hair with two wisps of hair that stuck up almost like antenna. He had bright violet eyes that veered on the magenta or even pink edge of the spectrum and well-defined canine teeth. He wore a black t-shirt with a purple track jacket with black lining details over it, black jeans, and purple boots. He was currently laying on one of the beds of the cabin, flipping through an instruction manual of sorts.

The eldest of the two girls had long and bright peachy-orange hair pulled into a high ponytail with a simple hair tie. She had emerald green eyes and wore a fair amount of blush. She wore an orange halter top with darker orange yoga pants, thick white bangle braces on each arm, and magenta boots. She was looking wistfully out the cabin's porthole.

The youngest of the girls was also the eldest girl's younger sister. She shared the green eyes and blush style of her sister, only she had slightly shorter sky blue hair pulled up in a slightly lower ponytail with a bright red ribbon. She wore a light blue sundress and slightly thinner white bangle bracelets with light teal boots. She was walking around the floor of the cabin, bored out of her mind. Finally, she couldn't take it, and had to call out:

"Dixie!" She whined, making the older girl turn from looking out of the window and the boy look down from his book, and at her. "When are we going to get there? This is SOOO boring!"

"Eventually, Kimmy." Dixie sighed, tired of hearing this question.

"What do you think Sodor's going to be like?" Kimmy asked, switching her attention in a snap from her sister towards the male.

"I've heard its always busy and even narrow gauge engineers get plenty to do!" The boy said, trying to sound optimistic, though a twinge of annoyance was still in his voice as well.

"Do you really mean it, Beck?" Kimmy asked, her eyes shiny with eagerness. "Will we finally get credited for our work?"

"I sure hope so…" Beck said, sighing a little.

* * *

On the deck of the ship, two people that had met on the beginning of the voyage were now talking to each other about their future. Their appearances were very different, but they managed to strike up their own connection.

The older of the two was a young Japanese woman. She was very tall, fairly filled out, and very generous in the chest department. She had silver eyes with wavy black hair that looked slightly smoke-colored and also had a few pale pink streaks in it that ended at the middle of her back. Her face had permanently blushed cheeks and she wore a light black baby doll t-shirt with light pink raglan cap sleeves (the shirt looking like it was manually stretched a few times to fit), a dark grey skirt that ended at her ankles, and pink flip flops.

The younger of the two was Asian-American. She was in her mid-teens, though her very short stature made her look much younger. She had short purple hair that stuck out when it met her shoulders and violet eyes to match, with a light sweep of purple eye shadow that made them pop even more. She wore an old purple and grey checkered flannel button-up shirt with the top few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up right above her elbows with a gold t-shirt under it, a pair of tattered grey jeans, and black tennis shoes with white laces. She had pulled herself onto the edge of the railing in an almost a pull-up stance to get a better view.

"So…Miss Yukiko…" The teenager said, a thin Brooklyn accent escaping through her speech, and her voice slightly strained from leaning against the bar on her stomach. "Just out of curiosity an' stuff…what made you wanna come to Sodor?"

"To be very honest with you, Roxanne…change." Yukiko responded, a thick Tohoku region accent making her voice sound slightly husky and stopped-up, yet still feminine. "Sodor…it is a world all by itself. It is almost impervious to change, actually…not like my home…"

Sighing a little, then quickly noticing Roxanne's slightly confused and concerned look that now graced her face, Yukiko quickly changed the subject off of herself.

"Roxanne, what is your reason?" This took the teenager slightly aback, and she quickly scrambled for an answer.

"Oh…a…job! Yeah, that's it, a job. My mom got me a good job here and she wanted me to go as soon as I could. Didn't even bother coming with me, just as long as I was saf—had a good job."

After the awkward scrambling of thoughts, the two remained silent for a while, peering down onto the deck, where someone else was alone with his thoughts…

* * *

This teenage boy (about the same age as Kimmy) had bright green hair with white highlights that was spiked back behind him with green eyes to match. He wore a dark green polo shirt with a golden gear emblem on the pocket, a white long-sleeved shirt under it, forest green corduroy pants, and black tennis shoes. He had made it to the front of the dock and sadly looked over the edge of it. He stared at the rippling waves as the ship sliced through the blue ocean. Every so often, tears poured out of his eyes as he isolated himself from everyone else…until a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Excuse me…are you all right?"

The voice was female and had a German accent to it. Ever so slowly, the boy turned around to see who it was coming from. In front of him were a young woman and a little boy. The woman seemed to be one of the older passengers on the ship. She had short navy blue hair that curled around her cheeks (and slightly covered a burn scar underneath her equally blue eyes) and wore a dark blue button-up blouse with gold buttons, a dark blue pencil skirt with yellow trimming, yellow socks, and black dress shoes.

The little boy was still fairly young, not even in the double digits in the age range. He had short and choppy olive green hair that was a bit unevenly cut with matching colored eyes (the bottom of his left eye being home to a large scar). He wore a forest green button-up long sleeved shirt that was a bit too big for him, being cuffed to right above his shoulders and tucked into his light grey pants, which he wore with dirty and beaten-up brown tennis shoes. An old and slightly large greyish green newsboy cap with a brown top button rested on his head. He gave out a huge toothy smile to the teenager, showing off his recently missing baby tooth.

"Uh…yeah…" The teenager hastily said, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. His face was still fairly puffy and red.

"We've…noticed you around the ship." The woman said. "Are you going to Sodor?"

"Um…yeah…" The teenager said, looking down at his feet. "I…own the green narrow gauge. It got…transferred from America."

"That's nice." The woman said, smiling a bit. "We'll be work on a branch line that has a lot of jobs involving the transfer yards. I bet we'll get to see each other lots!"

"That's good, I guess…" The teenager continued, still looking down a bit.

"ATTENTION PASSENGERS HEADING TO SODOR." A loud voice on the ship's intercom said. "ALL PASSENGERS HEADING TO SODOR. BRENDHAM DOCKS IS COMING UP IN A HALF HOUR. FOR THOSE DEPARTING, PLEASE PICK UP ALL YOUR BELONGINGS."

"Oh, I have to go now!" The woman said in surprise, and then grabbed the hand of the little boy. "I'll see you around!"

"Yeah…" The teenager, still looking down said, but then suddenly looked up when he noticed the woman and boy were leaving, and called out to them. "Wait! I didn't catch your names! I'm Cogs!"

"Call me Clinker!" The woman yelled, and then motioned towards the boy. "This is Fitzgerald!"

"Clinker…" Cogs said to himself as he watched the two of them escape from his vision. Little known to him, his puffy and red face was just simply red now…with a lovesick blush.

* * *

Within the half hour, nearly all of the people that were heading off to Sodor had packed all of their belongings and vacated their cabins. Cogs and Kimmy were the last ones to leave. Despite her best efforts, Kimmy was struggling to carry all of her suitcases. Cogs, having only a few belongings, and having been placed in the cabin near Kimmy's, quickly noticed her.

"Excuse me," He said, making Kimmy lift up her head. "Do you…need any help?"

"Um…I…uh…" Kimmy stammered, her makeup blush now being overshadowed by a real one. "It's okay….I…I got it…"

"I insist." Cogs said, then came up with an idea. "At least let me help the burden."

With that, he grabbed onto the handle of Kimmy's rolling suitcase (that Kimmy was still holding onto, making their hands touch). As the two teenagers walked down the ramp towards where the ship would dock, Kimmy could feel her heart beat faster and faster.

"M…MY NAME'S KIMMY!" She suddenly blurted, and then quickly went quiet in embarrassment.

"I'm Cogs." Cogs happily said, not paying much mind to the sudden outburst. "So…do you have one of the trains coming to Sodor?"

"Y…yes!" Kimmy said, trying to regain composure. "It's…um…it's the blue narrow gauge diesel!"

"Oh, you're a narrow gauge engineer, too?" Cogs asked, happily striking up a conversation. "I drive the green steam narrow gauge. That means we'll be stationed in the same area! I bet we'll work together a lot! That should be fun."

"Yeah…" Kimmy whispered to herself, still blushing madly. "It should…"

* * *

This was it. For the new and the old citizens of Sodor, it was the change of a lifetime. Brendam Docks was in sight. The time to tell about the Engine Empathizers is now. These are just some of the stories of the many citizens on the Island of Sodor.


End file.
